Female panther always freaks out when she sees the male.....?

Hey there I have a male panther (blue bar) chameleon and a 9-10 month old female panther. She shows pink and from what I've read means that these are her receptive colours.

Now, maybe once every 1-2 weeks i will get the male out of his tank (he always wants me to take him out) and show him/try to introduce him to her but within about a minute or 2 she makes her body really thin and angles away or towards him and gets all her black lines showing, one time she bashed him with her head (I tried putting them together because she seemed to not care of his presence and she did that out of nowhere) with her head but he didn't seem bothered (nothing seems to bother him, he's great) so I put him back in his home.

Am I right in showing him to her once every 1-2 weeks until she's ready? I have no clue what to do. I know breeding chameleons is nowhere near as easy as bearded dragons (which I currently breed but my male doesnt seem to care for either of my females at the moment, he head bobs and does all that stuff but doesn't seem to try and mate anymore???).

I'm wondering if the female has an infertile clutch (never bred before) because she seems to go down to the bottom of her tank a lot lately (started last week) but doesn't dig at all. She still eats and drinks no problem.



Any help/advice is GREATLY appreciated.


Another question. Is the lay bin in your chameleons home or outside of the tank/enclosure? Her setup doesn't leave a lot room for a lay bin really so I am my sure what to do about that either...

Well the first thing is that she is too young ot breed. while she technically can at this point, we try to wait until females are at least 1.5 years old, which gives them enough time to grow and mature.
shes behaving like that becuase she isnt ready to mate. when she seems oblivious to the male is when sheis ready.

I keep my females lay bin in her cage, shes in a 2x2x3 cage.

camimom said:

Well the first thing is that she is too young ot breed. while she technically can at this point, we try to wait until females are at least 1.5 years old, which gives them enough time to grow and mature.
shes behaving like that becuase she isnt ready to mate. when she seems oblivious to the male is when sheis ready.

I keep my females lay bin in her cage, shes in a 2x2x3 cage.

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Oh mine is a little bigger size cage I didn't think it was big enough...


I will wait until the end of this year then. Thanks!

XtremeHobby said:

Oh mine is a little bigger size cage I didn't think it was big enough...


I will wait until the end of this year then. Thanks!

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Welcome!

Yea I keep a big bucket in my cage filled with dirt.

camimom said:

Well the first thing is that she is too young ot breed. while she technically can at this point, we try to wait until females are at least 1.5 years old, which gives them enough time to grow and mature.

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Female Panthers in nature start reproducing at around 6 months of age and rarely live to be older than 1.5 yrs. Assuming good conditions which allow them to grow normally, female Panthers should be plenty mature enough to start reproducing by 9-10 months of age.

camimom said:

shes behaving like that becuase she isnt ready to mate. when she seems oblivious to the male is when sheis ready.

I keep my females lay bin in her cage, shes in a 2x2x3 cage.

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Agreed, unreceptive is unreceptive.

Chris Jury said:

Female Panthers in nature start reproducing at around 6 months of age and rarely live to be older than 1.5 yrs. Assuming good conditions which allow them to grow normally, female Panthers should be plenty mature enough to start reproducing by 9-10 months of age.



Agreed, unreceptive is unreceptive.

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Females in captivity have been known to live over 4 years.

I am aware that females in nature do it at 6 months, but why stress their body out in captivity when we can wait till they are a at least a year old and then breed them?

With females being able to live longer in captivity, it is healthier for us to wait to breed them till they are bigger and can handle the demands that egg laying puts on their bodies.

Chris Jury said:

Female Panthers in nature start reproducing at around 6 months of age and rarely live to be older than 1.5 yrs. Assuming good conditions which allow them to grow normally, female Panthers should be plenty mature enough to start reproducing by 9-10 months of age.



Agreed, unreceptive is unreceptive.

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1.5 years was overshooting a little bit. Chris, even though many can recognize that they are able to reproduce @ 6 months, in this case, where the breeder is clearly inexperienced, it is best to offer this information with a grain of salt.

YES, they can breed @ 6 months in the wild, but should they? Often times in captivity females can be too small to breed safely at even 10 months. Generally for the safe and health of animals breeding in captivity, 1 year is a good guideline.